Could This Be Love? (21 page)

Sijan dimmed the lights as they settled in to watch Avery’s second film.

The second movie must have been filmed quickly after the first. Obviously the studio had wanted to capitalize on her amazing talent while she was young. Her acting was so starkly beautiful and honest, it was a joy to watch her natural, uninhibited talent. Until one scene when something changed. Something about Avery’s emotion was different.

Sijan actually stopped the movie and replayed a few scenes until he could pinpoint exactly what he was seeing. Right there. It was in her eyes. Avery’s innocence was gone. Her sparkle dimmed. But her characterization plumbed depths rarely seen on film. It was stunning. And it was tragic.

He didn’t say a thing when the movie finished. No one did. He just cued up the next one. Ariel Diamond’s third and final movie in her short career. The one she’d made with Ferris. It was as riveting as the first two. Of course she out-acted him six ways to Sunday. His female fans probably didn’t care.

Avery had a blip in this movie too. Nothing obvious, just a subtle change in chemistry between her and Ferris. Based on Ferris’s reputation and the scene in the kitchen tonight, he didn’t need to guess what had happened.

When the movie ended, Tynan grabbed the lighting control and turned the lights up high. He looked pissed. “Okay, now, I’m not an actor, but that girl was frickin’ brilliant. I’m sorry to be the one to say it, Si, but she doesn’t need you to jump-start her career.”

“No, she doesn’t.” Sijan could barely speak with his gut tied in a knot and his jaw clenched in anger. He turned toward Pia, staring at the tearstains on her face. “What happened during her second movie?”

Pia was silent for a moment, then knocked back the rest of her drink. “You’re a Hollywood insider. I bet you can figure it out.” Her voice was flavored with whiskey and bitterness.

Sijan’s gaze locked with Pia’s. And he fucking hated what he read there. He grabbed his phone and ran a quick Internet search on the cast and crew of her second movie. It didn’t take long. As soon as he saw the producer’s name, he knew.

“Goddammit.” He wanted to throw his phone against the wall, smashing it into pieces so small it became anti-matter. He wanted to grab the asshole by his throat and squeeze the life out of him. Sijan got up and stalked to the bar, pouring himself a shot of whiskey. The fire burning down his throat didn’t come close to helping, so he stopped at one and paced along the room. “Fuck. Did she get help?”

“Some woo-woo quack who only talked about her past lives and crystals.” Pia shrugged and shook the ice in her glass. “Hell, you’re probably the best therapy she’s had.”

Tynan looked back and forth between the two of them. “What am I missing here?”

“Nothing,” Sijan and Pia said together.

“Right,” Tynan said, shutting up quickly.

Sijan needed to hit something. Hard. “I’m going to the gym.” He left the room without a backward glance, heading downstairs to the gym below. Ducking into his bedroom, he changed into a pair of workout shorts, not even taking time for a shirt. The anger swirling in his gut needed an outlet. He entered the gym as the sky was easing into day outside the one wall of windows. It was only slightly surprising to find Kaz already working out. He had forgotten how little sleep his brother needed. “Figures you’re up at dawn.”

“You know me—a couple of hours here and there and I’m good. The question is, what are you doing up this early?”

“Never went to bed. I watched Avery’s movies.”

“Well, you had to, didn’t you?”

Sijan shook his head as he walked over to the line of wall hooks and retrieved his wrist wraps and boxing gloves. “Why do you always know everything before I do?”

“What do I know, Si?”

“That whatever Avery used me for, it wasn’t for her career.” Sijan focused on winding the protective wrap around his wrists and hands before slipping on his boxing gloves.

“Have you asked her what she does for a career?”

“What?” That made him pause, then stop altogether. “Why the hell didn’t I ask her?”

Kaz looked at him closely. “Because in the beginning you thought you knew her answer, and you didn’t want to hear it. Now? My guess is because it doesn’t matter.”

“No, it doesn’t. I look in her eyes, and I’m in. I touch her hand, and I’m in. I see her smile and—shit. I’ve turned into Quinn.”

“Not quite, Si. But keep going. You’re warm and getting warmer. Close to red-hot, I’d say.” Kaz smiled a knowing smile.

He stared at his brother, a cold chill running up the back of his neck. “Holy crap. I’m falling in love.”

Kaz pretended to shake his Magic 8-Ball next to his head and turn it over to read. “All signs point to yes.”

Sijan took a breath and waited for the suffocating feeling to creep into his lungs. Nothing. Huh. “So far, so good. Okay. Except for the fact that she’s pissed that I accused her of trying to get pregnant with my baby for monetary gain, and she hates anything associated with Hollywood, and for a damn good reason, and the small—really little, actually, when you set it in the scheme of things—part where I accused her of using me to re-launch her acting career . . .”

“Sijan, seriously? What the hell? Have you been hanging out with Tynan or something?” Kaz nailed it. Like always.

“He was only saying what I was already thinking. It’s not him. It’s me.” Sijan punched the heavy bag a few times, striking as hard as he could, before wrapping his arms around it to steady it. “In Hollywood—hell, in adulthood—you get cynical and stop trusting so easy. Then there she was, like an absolute perfect rose sitting in a field of wildflowers. And instead of being amazed at the beauty of the singular rose, you wonder what the rose is up to sitting in the field of wildflowers.”

Kaz stared at him. “Sijan. You either need to leave Hollywood, or get some sleep. Maybe both.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Sijan looked at the clock on the wall and left the gym abruptly. He used his teeth to untie one boxing glove, pulling it off as he walked past his room down to Avery’s, where he stopped and listened for any movement behind the door. He tucked the boxing glove under his arm and knocked, calling her name quietly before opening the door and letting himself in.

“Avery. It’s time to work out.” He leaned over the bed, shaking her shoulder lightly. “Avery. Let’s go. Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty.” And damn was she ever with her blond hair soft across her pillow and around the sweet lines of her face.

One violet eye peeked up at him. “No.” The violet eye closed.

He ran his hand down the arm she had flung out to her side in sleep. The lean muscles and soft skin a subtle reminder of another time, another kind of workout. “Sweetheart, I’m just trying to help you reduce stress so you can keep your food down. But, we have to go to the gym to do that.”

Avery shot up in bed. And the sight of her in a white tank undershirt was stressful to his already stressed system. He really needed to work off stress now, and looking at her soft and sweet, blinking away sleep, he was beginning to have second thoughts on how to go about it.

“Avery, we either work off stress in the gym, or we work it off right now. Right here.”

He watched her gaze move from his face, down his chest, taking him in as he stood next to her bed. Her eyes widened and her gaze whipped up to his. “What are you going to do, hit me? I already apologized last night.”

Looking down at his hands, he remembered he still had a boxing glove on and another tucked under his arm. “Very funny. No, I thought hitting the bag would be a great way for you to get rid of some of your stress. Instead of taking it out on your stomach.”

***

Her eyes feasted on Sijan, standing half naked in her bedroom. His dark hair, slightly disheveled as if he’d been running his hands through it, still looked male-model underwear-ad stylish. And so did his body. The baggy athletic shorts he wore hung low on his waist, putting his sharply cut ab muscles on display. Her blood pulsed in a familiar heated rhythm as she looked at his chest, shoulders, and arms, remembering when her hands and lips had mapped that territory. Her fingertips, palms, and lips had taken detours along the contour lines in his muscled shoulders and chest, over the delineated plains of his abdomen and across the valley next to his hip bones. She looked up into the chiseled lines of his striking face and the turbulence in his storm-cloud eyes. “Is something wrong, Sijan?”

“Yes, something’s wrong. I . . .” Sijan shook his head. “I . . . I don’t know what you do for a living. It’s not that it matters. It’s that I failed to ask you.”

Avery had the feeling that he had intended to say something else, but the question about the job had slipped out instead. She had no reason not to tell him now, right? Nothing was secret anymore. It was no secret Tansy had lied to her. And the large group of paparazzi camped at the gates of the farm was proof her identity and whereabouts were no longer a protected secret. “Pia and I own a small production company, A and P Productions. We specialize in commercials featuring animals. You’ve probably seen a few of our ads on television. The Rise ’n’ Shine coffee commercial?”

“Petey? So . . . not chicken porn.”

“No, coffee porn.” Avery looked into Sijan’s still troubled eyes. “Is there something else wrong?”

“Maybe. But, I think I know how to fix it.” He reached out with his ungloved hand and pulled her out of bed, scooting her toward the bathroom door. “First, though, we need to teach you a healthy way to deal with stress. Please? Humor me and put on some workout clothes. I’ll humor you and pretend that tank top and bikini panties you’re almost wearing don’t make me want to jump you.”

Avery turned to say she’d be willing, but he stopped her with a finger on her lips.

“I know what I want and I think I know what you need”—Sijan’s finger grazed her bottom lip, then slipped down under her chin to tilt her face up to his—“and right now, sadly, they aren’t the same thing. Help me take the high road here and go put on workout clothes. I’ll wait for you in the gym.” He leaned in, pressing his lips to hers, then turned and left the room.

The high road? Well, heck. Why did he have to be good when she was ready to be bad?

Chapter Twenty

A
very couldn’t complain about the routine her days were taking on. She and Sijan met in the gym for a workout and stretching every afternoon. He taught her to box . . . while stealing her heart.

Sneaky man, except she was pretty sure he had no idea what he was doing to her. She even tried not looking at him during the workouts, but damn if he didn’t reel her in by being charming and engaging.

“What were you like as a little girl?” Sijan held the punching bag from swinging while she hit it.

“Awkward. When I was a little girl, I never seemed to fit in. I never had many friends, so I made them up. To keep me company. And the lonelier I got, the more fantastic my imaginary friends’ lives became. We’d act them out—”

Sijan’s face poked out from behind the punching bag. “We?’

“Uh, yeah. Me and my imaginary friends. I sound crazy, don’t I?”

He let go of the bag and moved around to the front. “No. You sound like a lonely little girl. I’d have played with you if you lived next door to me.”

Avery’s heart melted, until he said, “As long as you didn’t throw like a girl.”

“Hey!” She swatted at his arm with her gloved hand, but he easily caught it and pulled her in close.

Grinning, he said, “I’d surely have talked you into playing doctor and patient.”

On another afternoon, he asked her about her love of animals.

“Don’t ask me these questions, please. They just reinforce how messed up I am.” Avery turned to walk away from the discussion. She knew she was a therapist’s dream.

Sijan grabbed her by the shoulders and wrapped her up in the safe harbor of his arms. “Avery, loving animals is normal. Not getting to is sad.”

Avery shook her head. “No. Now, Sijan, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. My foster family was poor, and there were three children younger than me.”

“Foster family? What happened to your parents?”

“They died in a car accident when I was five.”

“I’m sorry. Avery, I’ll grant you cats and dogs can get expensive, but how about a hamster or a fish?”

She sucked in a breath as a long forgotten memory flashed through her mind. She stepped out of Sijan’s arms and moved in front of the punching bag. “I did have a fish. Once. You know how at the end of the school year the teacher lets one of the kids take home the class fish? My third-grade teacher, Miss Yetter, picked me to take care of Mrs. Goldie, the goldfish. She sent me home with the bowl and enough food for the whole summer and worked it out with Mr. Joe, the bus driver, so I could take it on the bus.”

Avery punched the bag as hard as she could. “It took me twice as long to walk home from the bus stop that day because I was trying hard not to spill any water, even though Miss Yetter had lowered it. I put the little fishbowl on the kitchen table to share with the whole family. Tansy, Tracie, and Tommy were all excited. Mrs. Goldie looked pretty sitting in the sunlight.”

Her fist slammed into the bag again. And again and again. The sting on her knuckles, even through the protective glove, was a welcome distraction. Each punch harder than the next until her arms were so tired she couldn’t lift them again.

“Okay, so you did at least have a fish.”

“Yes. I had a fish.” Avery smiled a feeble wobbly smile. “For an hour I was the happiest girl in third grade. Then Michelle and Bob came home. Bob said we didn’t take charity. Michelle said I hadn’t earned the fish and that I didn’t deserve a pet since I didn’t appreciate what I had.”

The muscles in Sijan’s jaw did that clenching thing. “How long did you live with Michelle and Bob?”

“Eleven years.” Her gut twisted with the memories. “Michelle opened the door and Bob tossed the fishbowl outside. It shattered in the yard. I ran outside to try to save the fish, but after I got it scooped up I couldn’t find any water. Mrs. Goldie died in my hands.”